Humbug

Winter break is over, and classes have started back up again.

Due to financial reasons (read: tickets are expensive), I decided to stay here in Bø for the entirety of break.  The hope is that I will have saved the $1200 on round-trip tickets in order to 1) afford life in this country and 2) be able to travel somewhere this semester.  I don’t know if either are possible, but I’m going to try.  As I’ve said before, food here is incredibly expensive.  My friend Pierrick even took a four hour drive one-way to Sweden to purchase groceries (primarily meat).  To celebrate Christmas on my own, I purchased a 1,4k ham (3 lbs).  That piece of meat alone cost me over 160 NOK ($28).

Almost no one was here for the majority of break, and there were a number of days where I was the only one in this building.  And in the times when there were people here (that I knew), there wasn’t much hanging out for some reason.  I was the recipient of a lot of pity over the holiday season, but I have to say that it wasn’t as bad as people thought it would be.  I wasn’t personally worried about it, but others were, and for their compassion, I am grateful.

I did get a bit of cabin fever, though.  That’s for sure.  I would be tired and restless at the same time.  My sleep schedule became completely inverted.  There were numerous days where I did not go to bed until between 6 and 10 AM.  I would frequently wake up sometime around 6:30 PM.  There were many days in which I did not see the sun at all (not difficult when it barely comes up in the first place).  It took me a couple of all-nighters to remedy this situation, but now I’m about back on track.  Lately, I’ve been having a different sleeping issue, though.  This morning, for example, I woke up at 8:30 AM – not a bad time to wake up.  The problem, however, is that I went to bed at 2:45 AM.  That’s not enough sleep.  I guess I’ll try to nap later.

I did call my family back home.  The only part of the break where I was bummed out about being here and not home came when I called home.  It was a bit disheartening to hear all of the family gathered into a few Christmas celebrations.  But it was nice talking with them nonetheless.

For New Years, I was invited to Skien to hang out with my friend Gunnar, but ended up turning down the offer in order to save some more money until I get the loan money for this semester.  It’s not much, but it’ll help.  Instead, I opened my curtains and watched the people of Bø celebrate the New Year with a rather impressive fireworks display.  Houses on the sides of the mountains all around Grivi launched their own little displays, and collectively, it was quite a nice sight.

I also participated in an online marathon for charity put on by the folks at ExtraLives.org.  They are definitely doing some good work, particularly when you consider that they’re only high school seniors.  After almost 81 hours of solid Zelda gameplay (they played several different games, including the horrible CD-I games), the guys had raised over $12k.  I was happy to donate my $10 and be part of the marathon.  With the money they donated to Free The Children, they are able to fund the building of a small school house (or build on to an existing school), stock the school with books and furniture, train teachers to run the school, and create a lunch program for the students for two whole years.  Absolutely amazing.  Now if only they could get the triforce on there…

Other parts of my break included (in no particular order):

1. Runes of Magic
2. Misc. video games
3. Reading
4. Writing
5. Movies
6. TV (see below)
7. Ham
8. mam!records

I watched a surprising amount of TV, often while playing games or doing other stuff online.  I watched:

1. Pokemon: Indigo League (the original season, all 82 episodes)
2. It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia (all seasons)
3. Frisky Dingo (all seasons)
4. Scrubs: Med School
5. MythBusters
6. Modern Family
7. Lucy, the Daughter of the Devil
8. Cheyenne Cinnamon and the Fantabulous Unicorn of Sugar Town Candy Fudge
9. Pawn Stars
10. Devil May Cry: The Animated Series (all episodes)
11. Cavemen
12. The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret
13. etc, etc, etc – this list is starting to get embarrassing…. It was a couple of weeks alone in Norway.  What do you expect?

Well, after that whole deal, I’m happy that people are finally here in Bø again.  I had my first classes this week – Norwegian Literature After 1900.  Recently, I had been doubting the progress I’ve made in my Norwegian education, but the start of this class has given me some much needed confidence.  Last semester, I had signed up for this same class (except it was based on literature before 1900).  I attended the first class or so, and found that I could understand nothing that the professor said.  I dropped it in favor of an independent study making up for the lack of linguistics at the college here in Bø.  This semester, I expected to have trouble understanding the teacher, just like last time.  But lo and behold! I could understand her – mostly. Definitely what I needed.

That’s about where the encouragement ended, however…  We started off our Norwegian literature course by reading Swedish, among all things.  It wasn’t too bad, but I certainly did not understand much of what I read.  The story we read was Alexander Skarsgård’s Att döda ett Barn (To Kill A Child).  At only two pages, it was a really great piece.  It certainly inspires me to write more.

The second day of this class was even more discouraging.  This time, we have a different teacher.  I forget his name at the moment, but he speaks a dialect that is very far from the one I learned.  The Norwegian students have even told me that they have trouble understanding him.  He also writes in nynorsk, which is a different writing system than what I learned (bokmål).  Luckily, he writes on the board for us to take notes from.  It would be a great help, but he writes in some of the worst cursive I have ever seen.  Combine that with words you’ve never heard in a writing system you’ve not used much, and it’s all Greek to me.

That’s enough for now.

Man Tänker Sitt

Not a week goes by where I don’t have a conversation on facebook similar to the following:

“John is having a great time in Norway.” (status update, etc)

Someone: yur in norway lol

John: You bet!

Someone: liak, the country?  er what?

John: Yeah, the country Norway.  Over by Sweden.

Someone: o kool!  why are you ther?

John: I’m studying for the year.

Someone: oh

Repeat.

And I have a feeling it will never really end.  I seem to have amassed 547 facebook friends as of the writing of this post.  I guess it is not really annoying that people ask me about Norway and don’t know I am here – after all, there must be over a thousand things that go through the feed just among these 547 friends each day.  And for the many people I am friends with but only really acquaintances in real life, it is easy to overlook me.  The real annoyance is having to tell the details over and over again.

Before coming to Norway, I got the same questions over and over again.

Why?

What for?

Now that I’m here, I still get the same questions.

Why?

What for?

A little annoying, but I have come to accept it.  Maybe I need to create a FAQ of my life.  Now there’s an idea.

These Are My Twisted Words

A few hours ago, a train from Oslo pulled into the small town of Bø.  Hope and I, along with several other students from the US and around the world, stepped out of that train and into the cars of Telemark University College students.

Hope and I parted ways within minutes of stepping off the train, and I haven’t seen her since.  That was about 7:30 PM local time (12:30 PM for those back home) – if my memory serves me right.  One of the hardest things about this trip has been not having a readily available source of telling time.

I entered the car with a student from another country.  In about five minutes we saw almost the entirety of the town (which is rather small for boasting ~5000 inhabitants).  Biggie Smalls thumped as we pulled into Grivi Studentheim.  This is the dorm I will be spending the next four to ten months at.  The dorms here are different than most of the dorms I’ve had experience with in the past.  Each person has their own room and bathroom, while six rooms share a kitchen and the whole dorm shares things like living rooms.  I must say that even without the separated closet, bathroom and entryway, this room is easily twice the size of the one I paid $456 a month for in Madison this last year.  Once tomorrow has come and I’ve gotten some rest, I’ll take pictures of Grivi to share with all of you.

I thought that traveling with Hope for many – many – hours, cramped together in too-small seats, would easily drive us crazy.  Surprisingly – from my perspective at least – there was little animosity between us at the end of the trip.  We were both grumpy after a cumulative 10-or-so hours of sleep combined over the last 48 hours, but I definitely did not feel like ripping her appendix out or otherwise tearing her a new one.  She may tell you different, but as far as I know, the trip was a real success.  I was very lucky to be able to travel with someone I could talk to for hours and have company during this incredibly long journey.  The seven hour layover in Stockholm went amazingly fast thanks to some epic games of WAR.

But the real fun has just begun.  Tomorrow we have group activities for international students to learn about the school, the campus and each other.  The schedule seems rather full for the next week, but thankfully it doesn’t start until 3 PM tomorrow afternoon.

There has been lots of rain tonight, but the foggy train ride through the Norwegian countryside was beautiful.  I believe I need sleep now more than  any other time in my life.  Goodnight, my friends.

P.S. Only one thing that I know of broke in transit – my shaver.

P.P.S. Myles Coyne: I have a gift for you.

This Side Of The Blue

Hope and I are in a little place known as Stockholm, Sweden.  I just exchanged USD for my first SEK (Swedish Kroner) and NOK (Norwegian Kroner).  I”ve got $20 in SEK and $180 in NOK (minus fees, of course).  We bought 30 minutes of internet time for 40 SEK (~$5.54) and we’re splitting the time, so I’ll be breif.

The flight here was really long – even longer so since I have had no more than 4-5 hours of cumulative sleep in the last day.  So far, I’ve endured a 3+ hour drive to Chicago, ~2 hours waiting to leave, and ~8.5 hours in the air.  Luckily, Hope and I were able to work out seating together.  I don’t think I would have made this trip sanely without her.

Unfortunately, there was a little trouble getting my passport stamped here in Stockholm.  Hope was never asked a thing about her time here.  The lady that talked to me was rather shocked to not see a study visa in my passport.  I don’t even think it works the way she said it does, because Hope was never given anything to put in her passport at all.  We both have to go visit the local police when we get to our town to finish the process.  But in the end, I got it stamped, and have three months to work out the study visa (Hope’s only took 3 weeks to get in the mail, so I should be fine).

Time’s running out here.  I’m in desperate need of some strong coffee, which is about $4 for a 6-8 oz cup.  The temperature here is roughly 10 degrees Celsius.  It’s a beautiful day on this side of the blue.